Ten questions
before you reserve.
Reserving is not the irreversible step in a purchase, but it is the first step of a rushed one. These ten questions separate a confident decision from a hurried one. Print the page and write the answers beside them.
Short answer
Before you reserve, ask ten questions and get the answers in writing, including exactly which unit you are reserving, the total upfront cost, when each payment is due and what the reservation agreement actually says.
A verbal answer is not enough. Reluctance to put an answer in writing tells you more than the answer would have.
The questions are easy.
Asking them is the hard part.
None of these is awkward or confrontational; a sales office answers them routinely. The difficulty is remembering to ask while a conversation is moving quickly. A verbal answer is not enough: you are the one deciding, so the answer needs to be in writing.
Exactly which unit am I reserving?
Brochures sell a development; you buy one plot. Floor, aspect, floor area, layout, parking and outside space all differ between units that share a name and a price band.
A plot number with a floorplan and area in writing, not a type reference from the brochure.
What is the total upfront cost, not the price?
Stamp duty is the line everyone knows. Legal fees, searches, registration, survey, ID checks, lender fees and currency conversion are the ones that get discovered late.
A number you can put next to your available funds, with each line identified rather than bundled.
When is each payment due, and how much?
An off-plan purchase can have staged payments running over years. The schedule decides whether you can fund it, not the headline price.
Dates or trigger events for each stage, and the amount at each. Vague answers here are worth pressing on.
What does the reservation agreement actually say?
It sets the expiry date you have to exchange by, whether the price is held, how you cancel, and what is deducted if you do. These vary between developers.
The document itself, read before you pay rather than after.
When will it complete, and what is the backstop?
Anticipated completion is an estimate. The date that protects you is the long-stop date in the contract, after which you have rights if the building is not finished.
Both dates, and an explanation of what happens if the second one passes.
What can still change before completion?
Specifications, layouts and the surroundings can be altered within limits. In a phased regeneration the view from your window may not be built yet.
What is fixed, what may change, and what counts as a change significant enough to give you a right to cancel.
What are the leasehold terms?
Almost every London flat is leasehold. Lease length, service charge, reserve fund, ground rent and building safety documentation vary far more between buildings than between areas.
Actual accounts rather than estimates, and answers in writing. There are seven specific questions worth asking here.
Who is regulated here, and who pays whom?
Several parties are involved and only some are regulated. Knowing who acts for you, and who is paid by whom, tells you whose advice carries a duty to you.
A clear map of roles, and disclosure of any referral fee before you rely on an introduction.
Is my funding evidence ready?
Identity and source-of-funds checks are run by several parties independently. Assembled late, they are the most common reason a purchase misses its exchange deadline.
The documents gathered as a pack before a solicitor is instructed, not after the clock starts.
What am I comparing this to?
A single option is not a decision. If you have seen one development and are being asked to reserve it, the thing missing is not information about that development.
At least two genuine alternatives you understand well enough to reject.
A question you cannot get
answered is also an answer.
The real work of this list is not collecting information. Reluctance to put an answer in writing tells you more than the answer would have.
Go through the list
with us.
Tell us which development you are looking at and we will put these ten questions to them on your behalf, and get the answers in writing.
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